This movie was like the biggest hit of 1986 and I should know better. Hell, my dad bought this film because he actually liked it, especially the sound FX. I didn’t mind since I was (and still am) quite a plane fanatic, and back then I had a hard-on for F-14 Tomcats (though if you ask me, the F-15 is actually cooler). It had been quite a while since I’ve seen the film so I popped the tape back up last night with my dad and watched the film. Man, what difference it makes after watching it for some time. If it weren’t for the impressive aerial photography, some good music and good editing, this film would be today just another money-grabbing dud. But it’s entertaining… most of the time at least.

The film takes as a background the whole description of the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School, in which fighter pilots get trained all sorts of tactics or “dog fighting” in order to become better fighter pilots than what they are. Enter Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise), a hotshot fucker F-14 pilot who’s too wild to be tamed, so he and his RIO or Radar Intercept Officer Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards) go to this school which is stationed in California as a last chance so Maverick can finally qualify to be ascended as Squad leader. Besides getting humbled through the course of the film (thanks to ice-cold Tom “Iceman” Kazanski [Val Kilmer]), he meets Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood (Kelly McGillis), a civilian instructor who, according to the box “teaches Maverick a few things you can’t learn in the classroom.”

Back then I guess in all the rampant fashion of the 80s and Ronald Reagan and all that shit, the patriotic feel and all which made Top Gun so popular. Today though, the movie is almost 80% pure cheese if you start adding the whole 80’s atmosphere feel, the homoerotic subtext, testosterone-driven sequence, lame plot, and the synth-music which sounds so 80’s. A couple of huge hit songs are here, like Berlin’s classic “Take my breath away,” which I can still tolerate, but if I have to hear that fucking Kenny Loggins song again, I may have to kill somebody.

The plot is barebones and pretty much lame. Several supposed insights on the whole premise of the dog fighting tactics and research comes off as pretentious and ultimately rushed, in fact the whole film seems a bit rushed. Some of the scenes come off pretty lame and cheesy like Goose’s rendition of the Jerry Lee Lewis classic “Great Balls of Fire” (not to mention that with the added homosexual innuendo that song adds a pretty disturbing meaning to it), as well as Cruise’s and McGillis chemistry which is at an absolute zero since we’re never drawn deeply into what makes them attract each other. They’re like blocks of wood.

Cruise once again is totally erratic as Maverick and McGillis isn’t helping that much on the acting department either. Cruise gets her naked though, but unfortunately since this movie is PG, we have to see it all edited out, DAMN IT!!! The broad standouts though are Anthony Edwards, and Meg Ryan, in one of her first movie roles. And if it weren’t for Cruise, Val Kilmer is pretty much the 80’s poster boy and this movie proves it. Too bad that he hasn’t got rid of it completely, although in Tombstone he ruled all hell.

Anyways, what saves this flick? Some great aerial photography by Jeffrey Kimball, as you see how the airplanes buzz and move all over the sky, I found that cool and you can say that’s the films basic appeal since it’s realistic and not CGI made. And also the fact that this film despite all its flaws manages to be somewhat of a passable entertainer and almost strictly an 80’s nostalgia piece. Directed by Ridley Scott’s more plastic brother Tony Scott and produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, don’t tell me you weren’t warned.

Your choice of view. For me, with seeing it that one time was pretty much enough. 2.5-5